The Zune team have just done something I wasn’t expecting them to do and that was announce something. This is exciting. They have just announced that from October 3rd the Zune Music Marketplace will be rolling out to Canada and along with that there will be a new Zune Music Pass for Canadians and US subscribers. This new pass will only cost $9.99 and will allow the same streaming of any and all of the 14 million songs on the Zune Music Marketplace but with one significant change, users wont be able to keep 10 songs a month. However, users do gain the ability to stream any and all of the music videos that Zune has access too.
One other piece of news about this new, cheaper Zune Music Pass is that it will only be available on four devices, just like the Zune Music Pass now is around the rest of the world. For once everywhere but the US got to try out a new Microsoft product, not sure we really all wanted this product though.
After October 3rd this new Zune Music Pass will be the only pass available. If you are currently a Zune Music Pass subscriber in the US and love your free 10 tracks a month then don’t worry, you will still be entitled to these as it is only new subscribers who will not be able to get them.
But, along with this news comes some questions. I don’t know if users outside of the US will be able to stream the music videos if they own a Zune Music Pass. It would also be nice to see a reduction in the price of the pass around the world too and not just in the US (I do understand that this reduction might because of the lack of 10 free downloads). Another question is why is “Zune Music” being touted so much, is Zune siloing its entertainment? But perhaps the biggest question of all is when Microsoft says “more news to come” what are they referring to and how long do we have to wait?
What are your thoughts on this news?
